Fatherhood Eve

Friday, July 22, 2016

2 Minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.The man's suit was mockingbird grey. Striped tie and shined shoes with a snatch of blue oxford in the background. You sat and watched and thought, I swear to God they're robots. Then a group of four strolled by in dark khaki pants and white oxfords with solid colored ties that looked like cheap silk. No jackets.They even walked the same.

And something shifted. Just like that. One second, you're laughing inside. The next? Why do they all look the same? Did I see that one before? Are they following me? Have they been following me my whole life? And tomorrow, Saturday, if it's warm enough that means it's cargo shorts and polo shirts. That's even worse.Why? What do they know...And shit. Like that. Backhand to the frontal lobe. Smelling leaf blower farts and wildflowers. Listening to the drone of the freeway. Feeling the heat bounce off the glass buildings. Right then, you realized that something is fucked up. With them. With you. With something. Don't ever trust a mockingbird.BREAK THE BLOG FOR ME! AND GIVE ME SOME STUFF TO READ! Get 'em! :)#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...

97 comments:

Well, Mr. Mader, that one stoked the fires of my paranoia... thankfully, there aren't any men wearing khaki around here, or mockingbird grey suits... seriously, this built tension in a short time, and in a really good way! Well done!

Dan it reminded me of something I heard yesterday about Erik Satie, one of my favorite composers. He only wore grey flannel suits and only ate white food. No wonder he died in his fifties. Enjoyed your piece.

Ha ha! Sometimes, when I communicating with Americans, I will do this: grey/gray or colour/color, out of politeness! lol (I love US English, so none of this is a dig. I might even secretly prefer it, but don't tell anyone.)

In the cold desert air, starlight fell from the sky that night like celestial snow. The Milky Way drew its dividing line across the sky and I watched shooting stars underline the sky.

He was late, but it didn’t matter. The anticipation was almost as delicious as the actual act. All the rules I’d broken, all the rules we’d break together. And no one but us would know.

He was my prisoner. I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean I stood guard in the watchtower and made sure neither he nor others like him escaped. I knew the top of his head from watching it for hours. I knew the rest of his body from expectation. I wasn’t the one who approached him first. I had gate duty that week. He’d gone in and out to the fields that surrounded the camp, fields where prisoners “volunteered” to work, just to get out of the confines of the barbed wire. Backbreaking work to thin and weed the sugar beets, but it was outside.

I checked his pass carefully, as he exited and returned.

The third day, he looked at me, smiled, and asked, “You like what you see there, sir?”

“Just making sure the name and face matches you.”

“The better parts of me aren’t on that slip of paper.”

I blushed. It was 1944. Nobody talked like that. It was dangerous. But I smiled back before shouting, “Next!”

He knew exactly what he was doing as he walked through the gate, knew exactly where my eyes would be drawn.

His face, and more, showed up in my dreams that night.

The next day, he handed me his pass and a slip of paper with it. “Block 7H latrines. 10 o’clock.”

He studied my face as I read it, and damned if I didn’t nod yes.

The prisoner had a sunset curfew. He knew that it was dangerous. He knew we had orders to shoot anyone out after curfew.

But I went. And I waited. And I watched the stars.

I heard the whistle of the bullet and the wet sound as it met its target. I ran from the shelter of the shadows, and saw him lying face down on the ground with a hole embroidered by liquid red in the back of his white t-shirt.

There aren’t many ways to escape a prison camp, and one of them is death.

“Is it safe? I mean, they call it escape room. That doesn’t sound safe.”

“It’s ‘Room Escape.’ They monitor it. If you want out before you solve the puzzle, all you have to do is ask.”

“But why are they offering to pay us? I thought you had to pay to play games like this?”

“They want to televise this one. Make it into a sort of infomercial about the game.”

“You’re sure it’s safe?”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Right, then,” said the host with a phony accent. “Here’s how it works. I lock the two of you in here, and that device up there will monitor your breathing and your heart rates. Over there, you’ll see one camera hidden in the wall, and over there, another. On the table you’ll see a green pill, meant to look like a sort of poison, but of course it’s not really. And beside it, a hypodermic, which the viewers will also assume to be poison. Of course, it’s just saline, and perfectly sterilized so there’s no bacteria or nasty germs.”

“I don’t understand…”

“If you can refrain from interrupting, everything will be clear. Now, where was I? Oh yes, the object of the game. There are three ways to escape the room. The first is to pick the lock on the door. You’ll also find instruments to help with that on the table, in the handy little pouch. The second is for you to complete the trivia game over there on the computer. It’s not all that difficult really. Things like constitutional law, history, that sort of thing. 100% correct answers will automatically unlock the door.” The host took a breath.

“I thought you said there were three ways?”

“I see you’re the impatient one. Yes, there’s an emergency fail safe built in as well. If that device up there detects that one or both of you have…expired. If it detects fewer than two hearts beating, the door will unlock automatically.”

“And this gig pays how much?”

“My goodness, don’t you read contracts before you sign them? One million dollars to each surviving contestant.”

“Surviving?” The question remained unanswered.

“Right then, it’s show time. Live in three, two, one. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to American Politics, the Room Escape reality show, where only one contestant lives to collect the prize….”

Like a sort of companion piece to the one above. Echoes of Saw (movies), of Running Man or The Long Walk (King). This needs to be expanded. I'm already hooked on the metaphor alone. A brilliant way to combine the increasing soullessness and nihilism of reality TV with the awfulness released by Trump.

There’s that wild reaction after you run into a sticky spider web. It gently touches your body and yet you jump up and down, pulling on your clothes, shaking your hair; maybe you’re screaming and dashing into the house searching for the bug spray. Essentially the spider received attention and you have changed. Next time you walk under the sycamore tree you’ll remember that unnerving feeling about things you don’t like or don’t understand such as the fear of the unknown. Not knowing whether a spider has landed on your back is akin to not knowing many important things that graze us for a response. Can we be immune to tickles that make us anxious? Can we measure how we’ll react before losing our cool?

Two boys lay in the pasture. Smart boys, they checked for cow pies first. The white clouds of imagination swept above them, in shapes of dogs, hearts, and dragons. They did not talk, did not complain when an ant walked across their bare legs, first one, then the other. A mosquito fell victim to the ruthless slap of a hand on a neck. Her kin kept their distance.

The mountains, dragon by dragon, dog by dog, were obscured by white clouds turned dark blue at the bottom, heavy with rain yet to fall. Eyes drifted closed in the lethargy of summer.

When the first claps of thunder came, the auburn boy opened his eyes as slowly as the sky moved. He stared at his blond friend. There, on his forehead, was a swallowtail butterfly, raising and lowering its wings, as if to fan the now-sunburnt face.

The dark skies drew closer, the August blue almost gone. When the lightning was separated from the thunder only by the count of five, he woke his friend gently, with a kiss on the lips, feeling for the moment, the beat of the butterfly’s wings against his forehead, too.

“We oughta get back. The storm’s moving in.”

They sat up, and the butterfly flew off to the promises of tomorrow, and two boys walked back to the innocence of yesterday, no fish between them, but a good catch all the same, for a summer day, beneath the clouds of imagination, beneath the tears of rain.

The ceiling fan flickers in the rearview screen of my keys. They sit bunched on my desk alongside an overfilled wallet straining like an enlarged organ, an unfashionable cell phone, and an open notepad filled with jottings and appointments and TV quotes and titles of movies I want to catch, like silvery fish, all written in green.

Only recently I quit talking on my phone to Gabriella, my most recent ex. In a red leather diner, art deco no less, I think I became amorous and whispered, "Let your petals unfurl for me," and now in shame I'm trying to forget this. She hung up, of course. But strip away the poetry and pretension and I think I meant it.

That quiet rural road at night, the scant light a weak spill from the sky gilding powerlines.

Gas stations in jaundiced pools.

I met Gabriella in a small Guatemalan village where we came to know the little apple of death in a mangrove swamp. That is not a metaphor. We came to know each other beneath the wicked limbs of a manchineel tree, unmindful of everything but each other's crevices and tastes and folds and fragrances, until our innocent choice of love nest revealed its terrible weeping teeth. A sudden squall washed its glutinous sap onto our exposed bodies, which erupted in yellowish domelike clusters of scalding pus. I won't even try to describe the torment. Enough that we lived. Scarred but alive.

The next time we kissed, I felt your newness. You, not Gabriella. I hardly want to say your name for fear of breaking some spell. But Nastassja, I guess, let's say that. It wasn't even an amorous kiss. More sibling friendly and full of love. I recall you smelled of the fresh rain in summer, sprinkled over the sweet dust of berries. That is always your smell, my love, will never not be. The things we scratched in the dirt have become signs, sigils, symbols, license plates, catechisms, wreaths, and leis, the heart-pause moment your fridge hiccups and your lights twitch and trouble flickers your brow.

After which we met Tyrell, a tiny whipped dog who finally bit back but bit all the wrong people. He lived in a motel in Sedona, but his dreams and his history leaked from the sun-bleached door and proclaimed themselves tendrils of dreamstuff, larger and more real than their origins. Tyrell wasn't a dog, though; he was a man. But he was hurt and squalid and swollen and famished. His footprint was tiny, yet his presence was vast. We witnessed a microburst, listened to a bell chime, made a clear date with him, and left.

After which we committed atrocities, of which I will not speak.

We headed north, Seattle bound, shunned, and I became Sylvain and you became Nathalie. We became the universe's secret scheme by which to gaze upon itself. In the shadow of a needle, we sucked each other's essence through our germy, blistered genitals.

Kept going. My god, my love, this late summer evening, an apricot and charcoal sky, the dense stand of trees across from my window thick with gelatinous greens, mutinous quiet, and still as an inbreath, a 3-D painting, that moment we know we're finally betrayed.

Right before we cotton to it. Before backwash. Before we are fully tarnished.

And now we all meet at the cabin by the lake, one by one or in small groups, you and your sister, the crippled geek, the quiet killer, the queen bitch, the whipped dog, the selfless children, the drastic the guilty and the laughable, as ordained, as determined by the warfaced nun and the sneering gypsy we couldn't shake loose in the French Quarter that unnaturally humid spring, by the cosmonaut with all the juicy conspiracies, by the Japanese artist daubing graphic manko portraits in defiance of her culture. My gentle Yukio. My profane Monique. My abandoned mermaid. My coconspirators.

The lake water is still, and the greens drip and mix like virgin oils on a canvas. A loon succumbs to laughter. The Milky Way begins its gentle rise across the darkness, a smeary cosmic vulva. A single coyote yips and then stops. All the trees, like bronchi in a vast lung, exhale as one. Sweet sacred oxygen.

We are here. We are seismic. This could be our moment. We might take flight. Grab our keys and wallets and light out. Then a fight erupts in the cabin—"Fuck you, what is this?" "I'll hurt you!" "Stay away from me!"—and suddenly the world weighs heavy and the moment lies wounded and defiled, stunned immobile by the sudden draining of all hope.

Ha, this is funny, because I just said you were channeling Bradbury! I wonder if, after a certain critical mass of reading such authors, it all comes spilling out eventually? (Thanks for the incredibly kind comparisons, either way.)

Well, I am stunned immobile. Goddamn, man. Gobsmacked about covers it. Stunning the way you can twist language, images, tropes, expectations, metaphors, and then bring us all back to a murky truth. Magic.

Eve, so happy the reflection in the keys worked for you. That was a risk, as it was pretty much the opening image, and it wasn't a lock (ha, 'scuse the pun)! The rest, you might even be more right, lol.

Teresa, I share a birthday with Rumi, no lie! Rumi and Truman Capote, lol. Marc Bolan and Marion Cotillard. An interesting day to be born.

Dan, I wish I knew where these things were coming from and where they're going. I'm just glad some people get something from them, even if it's murky and lost-sounding.

I've always wanted to do a piece like this. Only mine was about these giant cloverleaf superhighways and the exits and the overpasses and these complex designs and having these creatures from the future scratching their heads, saying WTF did they USE them for? What did they worship, exactly?

There is a delightful book called "Motel of the Mysteries" by David MacAuley (not sure of his last name)... delightful dystopian archaeology with pictures! You'll never guess what they think we used toilet seats for!

To love or to like? It's a simple question. Just a click of the key and a shift to the right. Do you accept the beige or will you select the chocolate? Do you live here in fear and choose to be filtered? Or do you swallow life down, so much that it spills out? Do you take it with thanks or do you study each bite? We've a life we've been given, it's a gift to be savoured. It's a brief flash of light that throws back the shades. One moment, no questions; it's a ball we can fumble. So take it with both hands, it's too precious to drop.

The fan rattles away, blowing ripples into my shirt and occasionally goosebumps on my arms. My hands float poised above the keyboard awaiting the control tower to get its head out of the ass of my head to impart instructions (I can’t hope for inspiration) for a landing I can walk away from.

In the monitor’s glass, I see an expression of flight, but not a flight of whimsy or artistry, rather of run-away fear and survival. But I can’t leave the room, I mustn’t leave this chair, until words, perhaps even pretty, fall from my heart to the virtual page.

And so I type — fetching, lovely, cute, captivating — heartfelt all. Now I await another flight — of fancy or fear — it matters not, while the fan flips the silver on my head as it oscillates like my creative self, by and by in the lonely monotony of the writer who’s forgotten how to write.

It's a weird kind of green. The kind you can't trust. Unnatural. I mean, I'm sure there are some weird-ass poison frogs somewhere in the rain forest rocking it, but it doesn't inspire confidence, dig? It looks like poison color.

That color might look alright on a bass lure or a terrible shirt from the 80s. Hell, it might look alright if it were some aurora borealis sky trip. But on a bandage, it just looks fucking weird.

Why bright green? You afraid I'm gonna forget? Cause I won't. But I'm tired of looking at this poison-ass nuclear waste color already. And it's been an hour.

And I could say colour, but I only play with grey. No extra U's for me. I got enough. Believe. You should hear the sounds that I try to suppress when I stand up.

I don't make the rules, though sometimes I break 'em. I don't feel real smiles on my face, but sometimes I fake 'em. And sometimes something genuinely funny happens. And people get a weird look on their face. They can see the cracks.

I hurt myself so you can't hurt me. I left your ass so you couldn't desert me. I'm tired of rhyming, fuck it? Certainly.

I like the way that water looks when it's trickling over pebbles. Blue skies and bird cries. I said I wouldn't rhyme.

I lied.

But I do like the water AND the pebbles. Keep one in my mouth for nostalgia's sake.

You know what really floats my boat, though? I like people who got mad flow. And it's not about spitting or rhyming. No. It's about timing. I like people who live like water. Undulating. Being there. They usually come from island places.

Surrounded by water.

Lord, keep me on the coast. Fuck politics and culture. We're in a drought, but I'm a water vulture.

I'll conserve and try to preserve, but I need to know ocean's around the next curve. You buy me an electric motorcycle and pay the bills. We'll take us the best damn road trip ever. But stray to far from the oceans?

I really like this piece, and your admonishment to your self, or acknowledgement that you lied... but here's a little secret... once you've known the ocean, even if you go to the desert, you carry it with you, you can hear the ocean roar when you close your eyes... I close my eyes a lot out here in the middle of nowhere...

He figured it was love of some kind because every time he looked at her it hurt. It hurt inside, chest, throat. And the aversion of the eyes? So swift it would break a lesser boy's neck.

So, love. You're not supposed to be in love when you're twelve though. Are you? There was something about her. The mean things other kids said. The hopeful smile that said, "please don't judge me; don't believe everything you hear."

He figured it was love, so he left without saying goodbye. Might not have ever said hi. Love was too big. Albatross. Elephant in the room, swaying. Better to keep the room dark and cool. Sometimes dark and cool is a pretty sweet hand. Sometimes just lonely, lost. Fuck the cost.

You know what I don't see a lot of lately? Kids with skinned knees. I think my knees were scabbed my entire young life. But I didn't have an iPad. Times change. Still, it makes me sad.

I think about the future. Old-man-porch-sitting and watching people zoom around on fancy machines I don't understand. Cold glass of iced tea beside me. God, I hope there are still birds to listen to. I like music. Maybe I'll strum my old guitar birds or not.

Maybe I'll watch the kids float by with their hologram wands, yelling, "HEY KIDS! GET THE HELL ON MY LAWN! DO A GODDAMN CARTWHEEL!"

Don’t know if I got the chops today. The world being what it is. They say if you got nothing nice to say,Keep it hid, keep it silent; keep it under your hat.Don’t know if I have the words today—or what I would say if I had.Would I speak to the sadness , the fear, or the joyOr be somebody nostalgic for what might have been?

Don’t it always seem to go you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?Tell me you got it wrong the first time, Joni.Tell me it was just a line in a song.

Tell me it’s not all broken. Tell me we’re better and braver than this. I miss my country like some old lover. The one who was free and knew how to laugh. He promised the moon and somehow delivered, he taught me to trust and never look back. It was fine to be reckless and good to write songs and fight for your rights in the street. But when you raised your voice you got a response. Not some robo caller, please press one and we’ll get back to you BLEEP.But maybe he died and nobody told me and that obit’s on late night TV. I don’t wanna seem like some sad old lady, singing some sad refrain.I just wanna know that somebody hears me and we can be great again.But I don’t want it twisted; I can’t hear the spin. I know what it does, I’ve been there and done it.And I just can’t do it again.So for now. I hold the words close to my chest like a hand of cards I’ve been dealt, and I hope, and I wonder if what we’ve feltCan somehow informWhat happens next?

Wow. That was epic. It's a great piece. I don't want to take anything away from the beauty of the song in there. But the lead in ... It's like I wrote that story as you when I read it. And I'm not even on hallucinogenic drugs.

"Don’t it always seem to go you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?Tell me you got it wrong the first time, Joni.Tell me it was just a line in a song."... that oughta be in a song itself... and you know what? We don't need to be great again, because we're still good, and good is where it's at... great is a fucking pedestal to fall off of... and we are awesome... good... and the competition is only with ourselves... to be better tomorrow than we were yesterday... it's not a Monopoly game, at least not if we play it right...

Knowing she was bone tired, Ramona tried to drift off. Unfortunately her mind was not in a cooperative mood. For the thousandth time she wondered what kind of cosmic joke had left her in terrific physical shape while wiping out Charlie, both of them with three years left to do on tour. Charlie, who might be considered a 4F now but was still such a jolting, magnificent specimen of virility in her eyes, he made every other guy wither in contrast. And Ramona should know, since she was surrounded by more machismo than sense on a daily basis.

Despite the deep well of loneliness she permanently resided in now, all the possibilities for action, did nothing, except make her and her libido wary – cautious, like the potentiality of being a victim to even her own team couldn’t be overlooked. She’d heard too many stories and knew too many victims to completely trust anybody. Shrewdly Charlie had managed to scare off any suitors almost immediately after asking her out for their first date, which consisted of a gentle interrogation covering all aspects of her life and a circuitous walk around the barracks. His intensity and slightly menacing nature kept them away. But now she was on her own in hell and the only one more pissed about it than her was Charlie, and maybe Sarah.

Turning on her side with a soft groan of frustration Ramona thought about the last time she’d seen her girl. Her remainder baby as she sometimes thought of her. She wanted to be home with her daughter, holding her, braiding her hair, saying no to earrings and lipstick until she’s older, and then allowing the occasional fake tattoo to make up for it. Her sole consolation was that she knew with Charlie, Sarah could not be safer. Charlie would dive on a bomb to protect either of them… and might even do it for the damn dogs. Charlie was kinda crazy when he loved something.

She tried to picture them in the darkness underneath her closed eyes. The times she could talk to what was left of her family were infrequent and could only be done through a screen. How had soldiers survived the epic isolation before computers?

She thought not for the last time she shouldn’t have laugh so bitterly and taken Charlie up on his solution to the hole in their lives and gotten pregnant again. Then she’d be where she should be and all would be well or at least so much better.

You know what's amazing. The rhythm doesn't hit you at first in a distinct way. For me at least. And then as I got into the flow, I could see how precise it really is. Almost like a calming metronomic vibe that lets the story lead. Very confident writing.

I usually write like a panic attack, so now, I'm going to try not to. It's only decent. I out to, really, break out the brushes for the folks who like more of a whoosh than a bang.

I know there are pretty things I miss, and deeper thoughts I never access because my mind just won't slow down like that. It's part of why I hate writing longhand. I end up staring at the pretty lines the pen makes.

I don't just write fast, I do everything fast. And make it look slow. That's tricky. I'm super good at it. Funny what years of being terrified and lonely can do to a kid.

I want to sculpt the ultimate word pyramid. That's how I look at it. Novels, stories, songs - all these words are piling up to something. I have no idea what. And yes, slow-writing me just realized that it would be a cone not a pyramid. Fuck maths. Fuck you. Be done with it.

I think I'm done with it. For now. I can't wear the brave face today. And that's what you gotta have to build giant cones. Or add onto them.

So, I sit, as the light through the slatted curtain billows. It's warm. And I am done for the day. It's someone else's turn to make the words. I'll just absorb them.

Because I can't process what the fuck is going on. In life. Life is what I'm talking about.

Sophie tapped an unmanicured fingertip against her lower lip as she perused the items in her grocery cart. They added up to more than she had in her wallet, and something would need to be put back. Then a man standing near her cleared his throat. He was an old man, willow thin and just as bent, his trousers bagging at the knees. Pointing toward the meat section, he said, “You don’t mind me saying so, miss, I got a good way to cook that. Might save you a little money.”

It was out of her mouth before she could stop it. “What makes you think I need to—?” But his eyes were so kind. And one look in her cart—the generic labels, the scatter of coupons—would tell her tale. Her throat tightened, and she swallowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just been…a tough day.” She lifted her gaze to the shelf. “Which cut were you talking about?” Maybe she should put the steak back and try something else. It was only a small steak, but still.

“This here.” He lifted a shiny packet of something that looked like intestines, or worse, and a reflexive memory wrinkled her nose. Her mother had always considered those parts as the garbage other people throw away. Forget his kind eyes; she wanted to make some excuse and push her cart away and never again return to this store, but for a moment, something held her there. Maybe it was the soft laugh when he said, “I know. It’s not exactly high on the hog, but soak it in some brine and sauté it with garlic and onions, and you got yourself something pretty tasty.”

She blinked as he propped up his smile and offered her the package like it was some sort of game show prize. No. She would never. It sounded awful, no matter what she sautéed it in. It sounded like failure and desperation. Her breath caught in her chest and the ceiling suddenly seemed lower, the lights brighter. Had they always buzzed like that? Had the speakers always been playing that awful music?

“Miss?” A hand clenched around her arm. “Miss, maybe we should find a place for you to sit down a while.”“I’m”—she gulped—“I’m…fine.”

She leaned against the meat bin, her cheek against one of the railings. “Now, you just breathe,” the man’s voice said. It was soft and poured over her like the cool air. “Is there someone I can call?”

She shook her head, willing back the tears with every bit of her power. She’d promised herself never to be one of those pathetic abandoned women who broke down in public. And in the supermarket, of all places. With the cheery, stupid music and the happy mothers pushing carts filled with organic produce and apple-cheeked, free-range toddlers.

“You know,” he said, “There’s no shame in it. It’s not always going to be hard times.”

She sniffed, turned to him. He sounded as if he knew. There was a kind of wisdom glowing from beneath the kindness. He pointed to her cart. “You could start small,” he said. “Like that steak. We can find you a cheaper cut, and I can tell you how to make it better.”

“You’d do that?”

He took her elbow and steered her toward the cooler opposite the intestines and liver and kidneys. “I’ll even write it down for you.”